Again the uselessness and total waste of what was being built was never a factor to its planners.

Like Obama's Bullet Trains going everywhere, the project was just a pretty picture to mesmerize the voters while the Officials looted the place using borrowed money dumped into massive kick back schemes for "friends" of the officials.

The same method is being used now on Windmill Farms, Solar Panel Farms, and Obama's Electric Car Industry which are all as useless as high rise buildings without elevators...but so what...the true goal is being met.

On the subject of Spanish design flaws, their new, 2 Billion Euro submarine is 70 tons too heavy. If it submerged it wouldn't be able to resurface. Its named the Peral.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2336953/Spains-1-75bn-submarine-programme-torpedoed-realising-near-complete-vessel-70-tonnes-heavy.htmlIs that a face palm by the Naval officer in the picture?

The architects I know are terrific, but the superstar architects who gain accolades strike me as entirely style over function. Gehry and Koohaas, for example. Do you not think this 47 story blunder is a fine example of narrative trumping truth, magical thinking...?

The initial backer of the project, Caixa Galicia, stopped paying workers for four months around the time it realized — after about 23 floors had been completed — that a service elevator hadn't been installed for the 41 workers who had been hauling materials up 23 flights of stairs.

You'd think that that little snafu might have prompted someone on the project to ponder the subject of elevators more generally, yes? But, noooooo. Reality trumps The Onion, again.

This story hit an engineering forum I frequent a few days ago and some of the denizens there did some digging. They concluded that this claim was likely an overstatement.

It seems that no work elevator was installed during most of the construction, so workers had to haul many supplies by hand up steps. It also seems that such elevators as are there are only adequate for the use of a 20-story building.

"Spain, had almost completed its 47-story skyscraper when it realized it excluded plans for elevator shafts."

Silly sentence leading off silly reporting. Spain is a geographic entity that realizes nothing. Many people, however, realized that the building had no elevator shafts, yet the building proceeded, not apace but behind schedule and over budget.

"The building that was set to be a 'standard for the future' has instead become a terrible reminder of the present age of decadence and excess."

A silly sentence to end a silly article. The problem is not decadence and excess. The problem is crony capitalism. Whenever government and business get in bed to serve the people, the people usually get the shaft. In this case, they didn't get even that.

I have read another report on this snafu that indicated that the architects had recently walked off the job. Perhaps those funding the building should be suing said architects for their particularly egregious incompetence. Geez.

Of course all of the architectural and engineering plans were submitting and approved by the relevant regulators.

In my youth I traveled a lot to Benidorm and the surrounding areas. Intelligence and common sense were uncommon traits in those areas back then. As we Cubans say " Gallegos al fin. Brutos".

Still it's a very pretty area. A beautiful long beach chock-a-block covered with Nothern European titties you could hopscotch from end to end. Then afterwards you can enjoy a lovely seafood paella with a good bottle of white wine in a beach side restaurant while enjoying the views. Follow that with a nice long siesta to get rested for a night of serious partying in the clubs. Good times.

There is an old tale that a 6 story apartment block was built in the USSR without an elevator. The assigned residents sued in court. The architects and builders were round guilty of incompetence and sentenced to live on the top floor.

I think it had elevators, it's just that when they decided to make the building that was planned to be 20-stories tall 47 stories, they just extended the shafts. It seems they needed to increase the room for the larger motors needed to lift it the extra 27 stories.

The hubby who is expert in all things construction, says they had to have a freight elevator to take up the internals..so the workers schlepped stuff 23 floors before anyone noticed? Some weird management dynamic going on there.

Interesting that if I read the linked article correctly the inaccessible added floors were funded by SAREB (Spain's functional equivalent of our TARP - the contents of which reside in the Fed's "Other Assets").

I wonder what we'd find it we could ever get an audit of the Fed? Awww . . . probably nothin'.

Hey if this is the Obamacare Building then (a) If you like getting your shaft, you can keep getting the shaft (b) condos will cost $2500 less per year (c ) 30 million homeless will magically evaporate once they build it (d) no worries, they can just "deem" the building does have elevators (f) Tenents will be airlifted to their unit's terrace by Osprey combination plane/helicopter just like Bo the dog (f) the building will forever be known as The Mom Pants building

I understand that Michelle Obama wants to incorporate the building's principles into her latest fitness program. Schools would be built on their sides and the lunchroom would be located on the 47th floor.

I understand that Michelle Obama wants to incorporate the building's principles into her latest fitness program. Schools would be built on their side and the lunchroom would be located on the 47th floor.

The notion that they 'forgot' the elevators is simply not credible. Elevator design is one of the key issues in very tall buildings, and no one would miss that - not even incompetents. Any worker who had experience on high rise buildings would immediately notice the lack of proper elevator shafts.

This is kind of like saying a company built an airplane and then forgot to add wings or an engine.

Even the amended story, that the elevator shafts are there but designed for a 20 story building and unmodified for a 47 story building is hard to believe. A freshman architecture student already understands how much capacity is required for elevators with different building heights and no one would ignore that problem or 'forget' about it.

I suspect the story here is still untold. Something else was going on to cause this snafu. Corruption, extortion, something. It's simply impossible to believe that this was an accident.

The other possibility is that this story is simply false or exaggerated. For example, perhaps the plan all along was to supplement the internal elevators with external ones, and some bureaucrat or committee refused to fund it after the project ran over budget and then blamed the architects for 'forgetting' about elevators.

Ooops. Turns out this was an error (not an outright, intentional hoax, but rather bad language translations and misinterpretations just snowballing):http://barcepundit-english.blogspot.com/2013/08/that-story-about-spanish-skycraper.html

The elevators are there. The claim is refuted.

But, I admit, I fell for it. Thank goodness for people willing to set the record straight.